In Bocrón, a port city in eastern Cuba, a group of ragged and sluggish-looking Chinese laborers lined up to board the ship.

Cuba was still a Spanish colony at this time, and after the abolition of the slave trade, Spain, like Peru and the United States, recruited Chinese workers from Chinese mainland to work instead of slaves.

It was not until 1874, under international pressure, that Spain abolished the system of employing Chinese laborers.

There was a Chinese-owned grocery store near the port, owned by a Chinese coolie who had been freed the year before.

"Shopkeeper, another batch of Chinese workers are going to be loaded and shipped away." In the grocery store, the guy who went out to find out the news reported.

"How many batches is this?"

"The fifth batch, the first four batches of Chinese laborers have been transported away three days ago, and the two escort warships parked in the port have also left."

"All the warships are gone?" The shopkeeper stopped the pen in his hand, closed the account book, raised his head and asked.

"Two large warships drove away, as well as five merchant ships and two wooden sail frigates."

The grocery store guy said.

"The grocery store is closed today, you and I will come back to the port to see it." The shopkeeper took the hat he had just bought from the wall, closed the door and walked towards the port.

The port of Bokron is one of the transit points between North and South America, and many ships of trade are moored in the port.

The grocer and the clerk pay attention to a line of Peruvian ships transporting Chinese laborers in the harbor.

The Peruvian fleet consisted of seven ships, five of which were medium-sized merchant ships, two small sail frigates, on which five or six guns could be seen placed on the side of the ships.

The Chinese laborers in front began to board the ship, and the Spanish tax collector and the Peruvian at the port talked and laughed.

"Lord Sun, isn't there a shortage of labor in Cuba, why do you still send Chinese laborers abroad?" After observing the Peruvian ships in the port, the grocery store shopkeeper walked up to a Chinese man and said politely.

In order to better manage the colonies, Western colonists often promoted some people to serve as colonial officials and assisted them in managing the colonies. Sun Liande was one of the people selected to manage the Chinese workers.

"Shopkeeper Wang, it is the Governor's intention to transport the Chinese workers out, how do I know the reason." Sun Liande is not salty or indifferent.

"Hehe, the villain has several relatives who were transported to the ship and taken away, so I hope Lord Sun will be accommodating once." The grocery store shopkeeper said with a smile, and quietly stuffed Sun Liande with two silver dollars in his hand.

Sun Liande glanced at the silver coin in his hand, and found that it was two Spanish silver dollars, and immediately knew it, put away the silver dollar, and said with a gentle face, "Don't worry, Shopkeeper Wang, I am also Chinese, and I will not harm my compatriots." ”

The grocery store shopkeeper's face twitched, and a feeling of nausea welled up in his heart.

Sun Liande was originally a member of the Chinese workers in Cuba, but later by reporting a Chinese labor rebellion, he was valued by the Spanish colonists, and made him a port tax collector to assist the Spanish forest in tax collection.

After Sun Liande was freed, he helped the Spaniards and Manchu officials to bridge the gap and use deception from China to transport a large number of Chinese to Cuba to work as coolies.

Knowing that Sun Liande had done a lot of bad things, the grocery store shopkeeper still held back the hatred in his heart and pretended to be respectful to listen to him finish speaking.

"I've heard that there is a shortage of labor in Peru, and Peruvians are promising to distribute the newly developed land to the people who have cultivated the land in order to develop it." Sun Liande said solemnly.

In fact, these Chinese laborers were bought by the president of Peru and were ready to gather enough 30,000 people to hand over to Li Mingyuan.

Peruvian President Pedro did not pass on the news of the Chinese workers' rebellion, but only gave the Spanish colonists a contradictory reason, so Sun Liande did not know the real inside story.

The shopkeeper Wang was a little disappointed, recruiting Chinese workers to reclaim the land, and the liar ghost is almost the same, the land in Peru is in the hands of big miners and farmers, and they will distribute the land to foreign Chinese workers?

The shopkeeper did not give up and asked Sun Liande again, but in the end he did not get the news he wanted, so he said goodbye and left, walked to a hidden seaside, learned a birdsong, and after a while a small boat came from behind a desert island.

"Brother Wang, long time no see." A dark-faced man jumped out of the boat and bowed to the king's shopkeeper.

"I have urgent matters to see the general, and I hope that Brother Li will hurry up." The shopkeeper did not be polite to the swarthy man and urged him to sail.

The two were old acquaintances, and the swarthy man saw that his words did not seem to be false, and immediately helped him to the ship, and then greeted him, and the other sailors on board understood, and steered the boat away.

The Caribbean Sea is surrounded by small islands and was an active area for pirates until the twentieth century.

Although after more than 100 years of British attacks, piracy around the Caribbean has stopped for a while, but since 1794, when the black Haitians defeated the Spanish, French, and British armies and became independent, Caribbean pirates have become active again.

The pirates obtained daily necessities by trading with Haitian blacks, and many pirates were directly served by Haitians, who usually worked as farmers, and when they saw that there was oil and water to fish, they put down their farm tools and turned into pirates.

The king's shopkeeper and the swarthy man's boat left the Cuban coast and entered the heart of the Caribbean.

The small boat in which the king's treasurer sat was about ten meters long and three meters wide, and there were fifteen people on board.

Such a small ship is insignificant compared to the merchant ships in the sea, which are often tens of meters or hundreds of meters, but the small boat relies on the triangular sail on the ship, and in the case of a tailwind, it runs faster than a merchant ship.

The boat travels through the busy waters of the Caribbean Sea towards a remote part of the ocean.

"Brother Li, there is someone in front of you." The boat was moving forward, and suddenly two small boats appeared not far away, flickering in the waves, as if they would be wrecked and killed if they were not careful.

"Don't be nervous, you've met your peers." The swarthy man did not move, and when the two small boats came to the side, the swarthy man held up a flag with a dragon's head painted on it and waved it twice from side to side. The black man on the opposite boat saw clearly, muttered a few words, and then got out of the way and let them go.

The swarthy man belonged to a nearby group of pirates, and the dragon head flag was their symbol, so the pirates on the other side quickly let them go after seeing the flag.

"Brother Li, you said that these blacks dare to go to sea with a small broken boat, and they are bold." There was still some distance from the destination, and the shopkeeper Wang chatted with the swarthy man.

"Who's to say it's not, our boat is ten meters too long, but you see them, they dare to go into the sea after hollowing out a big tree into a canoe, their courage is really admirable." The swarthy man laughed.

"A group of uncivilized natives can't build a big ship even if they give them a large amount of good timber." The king's shopkeeper said disdainfully.

What the king said was the truth, after the Haitian blacks occupied Haiti, they slaughtered all the whites on the island, and even most of the black and white mulattoes were killed by them, without the technical support of the whites and mestizos, the blacks made the island of Haiti into a miasma, and millions of blacks were stunned that they could not build a big ship, and could only survive by plundering passing merchant ships, and their actions were more arrogant than the Somali pirates of later generations.

"Haha, Brother Wang is right, a group of barbarians can compare to us." The swarthy man laughed. The rest of the sailors laughed as well.

Listening to the laughter of the sailors on the ship, the shopkeeper suddenly felt a sense of loss in his heart, and the black men who were ridiculed by his own group were still able to defeat the French, Spanish and British armies one after another and gain independence.

And what about the Chinese laborers who were the people of the Celestial Empire? Just now I saw them being bought and sold like livestock.

Thinking of the tragic plight of overseas Chinese workers, Shopkeeper Wang became silent and did not speak again along the way.